Articles

Helping our kids share can be really stressful, can’t it? I used to feel embarrassed when my daughter was little and would refuse to ‘be nice’ and share her toys. Or would hold onto someone else’s toy when we were visiting friends. There were times when I would forcibly take the toy from her, even…

Recently my 3.5 year old son was trying to ‘kill’ me with his pants. Hmm – never thought that would be sentence I’d write, but hey, that’s being a parent!! We were playing a mini chasing game on the bed as I was trying to get him changed when he grabbed his pants (undies) from…

Do your kids help around the house? Willingly?! Or is it a battle zone with lots of shouting, resentment and frustration? I’m a big fan of my kids helping around the house. I want our family to be one where we all contribute & support each other in the day-to-day activities. But I’m not really…

How are you? Like, really – how are you? Are you tired? Cranky? Loving life? Irritated? Wishing you had a housekeeper / cook / live-in nanny? Excited? Feeling like a rubbish mum? We ALL have times of shouting, being cranky with our kids & then berating ourselves afterwards. We ALL think that we’re failing at…

When your child does something ‘mean’ to another – especially if they’re young – what do you do? It can be so tempting to force them to say ‘Sorry”, can’t it? After all, we want our children to – learn to be kind to others – realise the impact of their actions – feel remorse…

What’s the thing that gets you most angry with your kids? For me it’s the dishwasher in the morning & my desire for Emily to empty the bloody thing! Before I became a mum, I had NO idea just how angry I would get with my own kids. And even with taking time for…

When your child starts or returns to school, it can bring up some BIG feelings! For them, and for us! If they’ve just started, they are probably in overwhelm, and if they are really happy to be back, there can still be an adjustment period of being back in that environment with teachers, lessons & friendship…

Name Calling – it’s frustrating, it’s rude, it’s embarrassing & it’s infuriating! When our kids latch onto a rude or inappropriate word, it’s sooooooo hard to get them to stop. Rational explanations don’t work. Shouting makes it worse. And ignoring it doesn’t make the words go away. So what else can you do? It will…

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My beautiful little boy has become aggressive & annoying. He’s roaring like a lion at everyone, hitting out at his friends and threw a train at another child’s head at playgroup this week. Marvellous…… How are yours? Are any of them acting up & lashing out? It’s bloody irritating isn’t it?! SIGN UP TODAY FOR…

Now that the new school term has started, have you booked your kids in for various after-school activities? Tennis? Piano? Soccer? Swimming? Ballet? Gymnastics? Drama? Rugby? Etc, etc, etc When I was booking my daughter into her aerial silks and gymnastics glasses, I started to think WHAT ABOUT ME?! I’m happy to pay for Emily…

Do you find yourself endlessly stroking, singing or patting your child to sleep? Or hunting for the best soothing music? Or creating very specific routines which turns into a disaster at the slightest deviation? If bedtime has become this drawn-out, ever-so-stressful-but-I’m-trying-to-radiate-calm-energy-so-you-will-go-to-sleep-before-I-scream experience(!), then it’s helpful to look at whether these soothing tactics & routines are…

Do you notice how your kids play up when you are stressed? How when you’re on edge that they’re going to do something inappropriate or awful, then that’s pretty much exactly what happens?! Particularly when family members are around who could be critical of what you’re doing?! My mum is currently staying with me for…

Do you ever despair at your child’s over-the-top reaction when you dare to say no to them? Even when you’re being perfectly reasonable in your request? If so, this week’s video can help! A mum recently posted in our Really Useful Parenting Facebook Club about the struggle she is having with her 3 year old…

Do you ever find yourself hearing or saying “This too shall pass” when everything feels so unbelievably hard or out of control? When the baby won’t sleep, the toddler is hurling food & cutlery across the room, the child is refusing to get ready for school and the partner is wondering why you’re stressed? But…

One afternoon this week, my 2 year old son had a meltdown over me eating a blueberry from the full punnet he had taken from the fridge. He was so insistent that they were HIS blueberries and that I couldn’t have any. “They’re MINE”. “Don’t eat MY blueberries”. He got very upset and started to…

A little while ago I posted about how I was feeling resentful towards my kids during the summer holidays, and how I managed to turn that around. What happened after I sent the email & uploaded the video was amazing. And full-on….. My 8 year old had a MASSIVE anger ‘tantrum’ and then a huge cry…

How are you? How are your kids? How’s your parenting going….?! Do you want some extra support? Some tailored advice for your specific challenges with your kids? Sometimes reading articles & watching videos is perfect, but sometimes you just need something a bit more specific. Someone you can ask all of your questions to and, together, work out…

Here in Oz, we are in the midst of our long summer school holidays. And I had recently started to feel RESENTFUL. And then I figured that I probably wasn’t alone….. So am wondering do you ever feel resentful towards your kids?! In my case, this past week I had started to feel: Resentful that…

This week I lost it with my daughter. It wasn’t pretty…. Of course afterwards I felt terrible, and added on my guilt with being a Parenting Instructor, so I really should know better. But that’s the thing. We can know everything about how to ideally be with our kids. We can also strongly want to…

Have you ever taken your child out for a really lovely trip, or planned something gorgeous for them, only for them to turn around and be rude, uncooperative, ungrateful or generally awful?! Or you’ve created a fabulous birthday party and they have a meltdown at the end of it, saying it was “the worst day…

Practical ways to maintain connection, build emotional intelligence and helpfully discipline your child without being punitive. Do you currently use Time Out and are now looking for an alternative? Or do you in theory not want to use Time Out but are struggling to know in practice how to deal with your child when they are being…

Has your child ever told you to go away? Actually, have they shouted it at you?! And probably whilst you’re trying to get close to them to help them when they were upset or getting angry over something? When my daughter used to shout it at me, I wasn’t really sure of the best way…

Do you properly celebrate your own birthday? I ask, because we’re often really great at creating a beautiful celebration for our child/ren, but can feel it’s a bit self-indulgent to make a fuss over ours. Or we don’t want to be reminded of how old we’re getting…..! But it’s SO important to celebrate ourselves! And…

You know those times when you explain things again & again (& again!) but your child isn’t taking it in? When your child becomes fixated on doing or having something that you just can’t do or give right then. And you get exasperated because you’re trying to be reasonable and find other ways to help…

Recently I’ve been dealing with a very accident prone little toddler (poor thing!). So this week’s video is about how a simple thing such as a carseat can help your child deal with painful accidents and medical procedures such as vaccinations, blood tests, etc. I know – it seems strange, but this is about how a seemingly…

Does your partner refuse to read any of the amazing articles or books that have inspired your parenting choices? Does he roll his eyes when you ask him to change his approach? Are you feeling frustrated that he’s not doing what you’d ideally want him to do? This is such a common complaint! Particularly by mums. We…

How is it getting out of the house in the morning with your kids to go to work, school or daycare? Do you struggle to get out on time? Do you get stressed, annoyed or irritated? Most of us do! We’re under the pump to be on time (do you have to report at school…

– Do your kids ever drive you CRAZY?! – Are you looking for a respectful, practical and effective way of dealing with those challenging moments? – Would you like more FUN in your parenting and family? If so, welcome to ANNOYING to AMAZING! Over 6 weeks you will: Find out more about your brain and…

“I want to throw the baby in the bin!” There can be such an expectation for our older child to be as thrilled about the new baby as we are. And of course they often aren’t. Their world is changing and they can be really afraid of whether there will be enough love and attention…

This is a topic I wish I didn’t have to write about. It’s about loss, grieving and sadness as our beloved dog Skip died this week. I’ve been dealing with my own grief, plus my 6 year old’s. Below are points on how we can help our children during difficult times. Plus, I’ve also included…

My 6 year old daughter, Emily, had never been great separating from me. Once I’d gone, she was fine, but the point of separation was always very hard for her, and increasingly frustrating for me. For over a year, leaving her in at school was frequently difficult, plus separation at bedtime could be challenging too….

It had been a hard week. I was exhausted. Spent. I had nothing left to give. I was frequently in tears but had managed to hide them from everyone. But not my crankiness. That was very evident for my 6 year old and my husband… and the fact that I had ‘lightly’ crashed into another…

Help your baby sleep through the night by listening to your baby’s emotions. Parenting by Connection and Aware Parenting will give you the tools to understand why your baby cries and how you can help them sleep.

by Amanda Kane & Tanya Fleming from Pinkfarm When packing our children’s lunch boxes we prioritise quality over quantity. The modest quantity of lunch given to our children is intensified by the nutrient dense, quality food choices we provide them with. What is nutrient density? Nutrient dense foods are unrefined, unprocessed and made from whole…

by Emma Mason From the beginning, bath time brought up a lot of feelings for our little girl. She cried reliably during and after every bath for the first 6 months of her life. Early on, this was stressful for my husband and I. Bath time was not the enjoyable and bonding experience we had…

Sometimes our children have the biggest cries over the smallest of things. We can be completely baffled why they are so upset over something so minor as the wrong colour plate, the wrong t-shirt or event a biscuit being slightly broken. It can lead to us becoming infuriated, bewildered or upset ourselves. Sometimes we can…

Anger is such a strong emotion that it can be very confronting to see it in our child, particularly when they are so young. The display of anger can sometimes be such a massive, out of control response that we frequently don’t know what to do. Parenting is no longer this lovely, wonderful experience. It’s…

Have you ever tried to reason with your child when they are having a tantrum? Or have you ever wondered why on earth they are making such a massive fuss over something seemingly so unimportant? The reason is not that your child is wilfully ignoring you, or manipulating you or making a fuss over nothing….

Does you child hate cleaning their teeth? At the end of a busy day, with the winning line of children sleeping just in sight, it can be really frustrating to continually have a battle over doing something so basic. If this is an issue for you, what have you done? I’ve known parents to plead…

Do you & your partner go on date nights? It may not be as frequently as before kids, but do you plan time together that’s just about the 2 of you? If so, how do you feel about your partner afterwards? Closer, more connected, more loving? Special Time is a concept similar to Date Night….

Does your child ever call you names? Or have you noticed your children’s friends are using it amongst themselves and you’d like them to stop? If you have and you want it to stop, you may have tried the following: Asked them politely to stop Reasoned with them by explaining it’s not a nice thing…

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Helena relayed her feelings and experiences about her own family in such a manner that I could easily relate to her experiences and reveal & freely address my own emotions and experiences.
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